Can you give me an example of soical ecology? One thing I see across solar punk posts, is inclusion of an ecological component, using innovation but it is often Ill defined.
Use of tech or innovation to restore the environment is /c/Reclamation
this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
11 points (86.7% liked)
Anarchism and Social Ecology
1359 readers
114 users here now
!anarchism@slrpnk.net
A community about anarchy. anarchism, social ecology, and communalism for SLRPNK! Solarpunk anarchists unite!
Feel free to ask questions here. We aspire to make this space a safe space. SLRPNK.net's basic rules apply here, but generally don't be a dick and don't be an authoritarian.
Anarchism
Anarchism is a social and political theory and practice that works for a free society without domination and hierarchy.
Social Ecology
Social Ecology, developed from green anarchism, is the idea that our ecological problems have their ultimate roots in our social problems. This is because the domination of nature and our ecology by humanity has its ultimate roots in the domination humanity by humans. Therefore, the solutions to our ecological problems are found by addressing our social and ecological problems simultaneously.
Libraries
Audiobooks
- General audiobooks
- LibriVox Public domain book collection where you can find audiobooks from old communist, socialist, and anarchist authors.
- Anarchist audiobooks
- Socialist Audiobooks
- Social Ecology Audiobooks
Quotes
Poetry and imagination must be integrated with science and technology, for we have evolved beyond an innocence that can be nourished exclusively by myths and dreams.
~ Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom
People want to treat ‘we’ll figure it out by working to get there’ as some sort of rhetorical evasion instead of being a fundamental expression of trust in the power of conscious collective effort.
~Anonymous, but quoted by Mariame Kaba, We Do This 'Til We Free Us
The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.
~Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
The assumption that what currently exists must necessarily exist is the acid that corrodes all visionary thinking.
~Murray Bookchin, "A Politics for the Twenty-First Century"
There can be no separation of the revolutionary process from the revolutionary goal. A society based on self-administration must be achieved by means of self-administration.
~Murray Bookchin, Post Scarcity Anarchism
In modern times humans have become a wolf not only to humans, but to all nature.
The ecological question is fundamentally solved as the system is repressed and a socialist social system develops. That does not mean you cannot do something for the environment right away. On the contrary, it is necessary to combine the fight for the environment with the struggle for a general social revolution...
~Abdullah Öcalan
Social ecology advances a message that calls not only for a society free of hierarchy and hierarchical sensibilities, but for an ethics that places humanity in the natural world as an agent for rendering evolution social and natural fully self-conscious.
~ Murray Bookchin
Network
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Ad Astra Comix did a brief intro to Social Ecology back in 2020
one of the key features of solarpunk is not just “technology” per se but technology in service to nature instead of exploiting nature
anarchism, social ecology, and democratic confederalism all serve as a reminder that society, politics, economics, culture, and the environment are DEEPLY intertwined and inseparable – the separation of communities is not treating the issues in isolation but simply a matter of which facet you are currently focusing on
That's pretty much it
This is a good comic that explains it well. Thanks for that.
I don't, however, agree with the anti-nuclear sentiment. I think nuclear power is the best option we have going at the moment. Europe had 60k tonnes of spent fuel as of 2016. This is a very small amount, considering waste rock dumps, which can leach metals, can easily contain 2 million tons of rock per site (mine). The timelines are certainly not great, though I was reading that a after a surprisingly short time, the radiation is primarily alpha radiation, and thus 'safe' unless you ingest the stuff.
Regardless, I see the benefit of nuclear being in powering small, remote communities (north west territories), or supplementary systems that add robustness into other green energy grids. They could also be used to supply pumps with energy in pumped hydro or gravity batteries. As such, I don't think we should dismiss it out of hand.
part of that is recognizing our knowledge of nuclear is advancing over time
the anti-nuclear movements where (in a large part) a response to the Three Mile Island accident combined with leftover fears of the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, add in a later resurgence after the Chernobyl disaster and “duck and cover” drills in schools during the height of the cold war
between sensationalist reporting, mismanaged governmental regulations, and companies perfectly happy to dump wastewater into the local water supply, and no Wikipedia, anti-nuclear sentiments make far more sense during that time period
Again, you make an excellent point. Context is key. Thankfully, we are advancing our understanding, albeit at a dreadfully slow pace.
Social ecology isn't a materials science like engineering. It certainly takes point from those, but it's more of a social science component, a social-political-theoretical framework for liberatory technology, rather than the material innovations per se. It's ideological reasoning if you will.
Thanks, I like this explanation, too. It's certainly an important component of a green revolution. It's a side I don't often think about, as I'm tied to the technical side of things quite tightly.
might as well include democratic confederalism (in the sidebar at least, would make the community name too long) since it is a direct descedant of social ecology – yesterday’s post Make Rojava Green Again would serve as a good introduction for anyone interested
Sure. Could you write it up? Then I'll include it.